


starved

by Star_less



Series: the ‘Baby Powder’ pathway [2]
Category: Black Mirror, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch (2018)
Genre: Baby Stefan, Canon Divergence, Colin always knows what Stefan needs, Comforting, Complete, Crying, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Hurt and comfort, Infantilism, Little-Space, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Mohan Thakur - Freeform, Mohan Thakur is a Dick, NSAP at work, Non-Sexual Age Play, Not Beta Read, One-Shot, Pacifiers, Post-Bandersnatch, Post-Canon, Stefan is a cinnamon roll, Stefan working for Tuckersoft, Temper Tantrums, Workplace, caregiver colin, littles starved of little time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 10:33:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17445254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Star_less/pseuds/Star_less
Summary: “Deadline’s in a month, Butler, and I am not fucking having the team lose out on work because you’re having a bleeding temper tantrum.”He felt like he was... starved of it, like the ache in his heart if he thought of it for too long was some sort of insatiable hunger only quenched by him having a fucking dummy in his mouth.With seasonal deadlines looming over Tuckersoft, Stefan is under pressure to create as much new content as he can, which means having to reorganise his priorities. It soon becomes clear that he has made a wrong choice along the way. Enter Colin, who helps him rethink and set him off on a different path.





	starved

**Author's Note:**

> I'm baaaaaccck < ominous music plays in distance >
> 
> This has been bugging me since I wrote the first one. I am a HUGE FAT SUCKER for some littles who desperately need little time. Again, I'm not sure how many of you actually enjoy these. I do, but I'm a weird little gremlin. My first fic was well received although I'm not sure if that's just luck. Thank you, btw, if you've been reading and enjoying. I love you all. 
> 
> Anyway... if you like this sort of thing, have fun! If not... click backwards. Choose a different path!

Staring at the screen until his eyes pulsed with exhaustion Stefan slammed a finger down onto the enter key three times out of sheer desperation. “Come on,” he pleaded in a whimper, watching the sluggish screen pull itself into life through eyes that were rapidly welling with tears. “Please, please don’t crash...”

He had been doing that a lot more recently - crying and, erm, asking inanimate objects to do what he fucking wanted them to do. When Bandersnatch was in the pipeline for a Christmas release Stefan had gotten so angry at his lagging computer that he had thrown tea over the keyboard and screamed until his throat was raw but... well, ever since Colin had introduced him to this whole... babying thing, his instinctive response to anything that went wrong in his life was to burst into tears and plead because he was trying his hardest and why wasn’t anything working the way he wanted it to even when he asked nicely like a good boy?!  
With this new deadline looming, Thakur had been biting his arse constantly for three weeks now. Stefan had been trying his hardest, working around the clock to pump out new content. It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy it— working on new projects sent him off to a different stratosphere where he seemed to forget about the stresses going on in his daily life—but... it meant that Stefan had had to give up his precious baby time in order to work. Colin had warned him of this, that sometimes he would have to make sacrifices, but he had promised that they would work around it. Credit to him; he had tried, he had fucking tried his hardest. Every time Stefan and Colin returned home from Tuckersoft Colin would give him the choice—always a choice—asking if he would like to work a little less today and unwind a little before bed. But Stefan was so... so stressed. Any time he spent in littlespace was time when he could be working, and that was all Stefan could focus on to the point where it overtook his mind, stopped him from relaxing even if Colin was right and it was something he so desperately needed. He was glad that Colin never forced him, glad that Colin always gave him choices. The only compromise the pair could come to was that Stefan to be in bed by 12:30 each night — and when he did he was to cuddle in tight, no escaping once Colin had fallen asleep. It was an odd set-up but... well, it worked for them.  
Even if Stefan was falling asleep at his desk at lunchtime.  
Even if Stefan’s thumb inched closer and closer to his mouth and he longed for the pressure of his dummy on his tongue.  
It... was fine.

The computer made a series of promising noises. Stefan lifts his head, eyes widening with anticipation... before again the screen collapses into black sending hours of hard work down the drain.  
Stefan... did not know what came over him in that moment. He screamed. He screamed the sort of scream that only an anguished toddler was capable of screaming; one that built up right from the pit of his belly and cascaded from his mouth in a fireball of venom. He hit the table, he hit the keyboard, he wailed and cried ‘no’ (and cried some more when he hit his hand and it instantly began to bruise and throb.) The mist of anger seemed to subside somewhat after Stefan hurt himself - as if the pain was an instant antidote. Rather, Stefan felt ugly tendrils of shame begin to uproot themselves in his stomach. His lip trembled. _Oh, God. Colin._ He wanted Colin. Something welled in his throat that made him feel like he wanted to curl up and burst into tears and he whined, made an ugly little noise around the rapidly growing lump.  
Fuck, no, he _needed_ Colin— well, if Stefan was being brutally honest with himself it wasn’t Colin he needed but Colin meant a cuddle and his dummy and Rabbit and just a blissful ten fucking minutes of not having to worry about deadlines and computer crashes because he had missed it so fucking much-- he was trying so hard to keep himself together but it was _hard_. He felt like he was... starved of it, like the ache in his heart if he thought of it for too long was some sort of insatiable hunger only quenched by him having a dummy in his mouth. And oh but it killed Stefan to have to give it up so soon. It wasn’t even as if Colin was gone (he was on a smoke break) or that Stefan was never going to see his dummy ever again but… but he needed them now.

“Are you done?”

Thakur.

Stefan’s belly turned to ice, ice that made him feel sick. Trembling, he twisted in his chair and slowly faced his boss, praying that the red puffiness of his eyes would make the man have some semblance of pity for him. “The computer crashed.” He whispered, wincing when his voice came out trembling with tears - all thick, as though he was about to cry and he couldn’t, wouldn’t ever cry in front of Mohan Thakur. “I-I know that’s no excuse, but—” 

“Deadline’s in a month, Butler, and I am not fucking having the team lose out on work because you’re having a bleeding temper tantrum.” Thakur spat at him. It was tame, really, for Thakur— but Stefan found himself struggling even if he was shouted at in a slightly louder tone of voice these days— and his belly bristled at Thakur terming it a ‘temper tantrum’. Nobody knew about this... this thing. It was a secret that belonged only to Stefan and Colin — that was what Colin said. Still, Stefan worried about someone - anyone - on their team finding out. Fuck... it would make his life hell - his life and Colin’s. He would be a laughing stock, fired by the end of the week. “The next loss we make in computer damages is coming out of your paycheck,” Thakur said but Stefan wasn’t listening; favouring twiddling his thumbs and trying to keep himself from wailing than having to look Thakur in the eye.

Which all went to shit as soon as Colin walked in. Naturally, because the world only ever wanted the worst for him. 

“Hey, you.” 

Colin wasn’t stupid, and his irritating skill of being able to detect when even the slightest issue was bothering Stefan seemed only to heighten since he had appointed himself as Stefan’s caregiver. He settled down in the free space opposite Stefan’s desk and glanced at Stefan’s computer before finally glancing at Stefan himself. Stefan who was now quivering and trying to knot himself up into an even smaller ball - if that was humanly possible. “Programming issues?” He gave Stefan’s shoulders a little squeeze.

God. Stefan stills at once, sucking up even the slightest show of affection with a snivel. Colin... his voice was all soft and sweet and weaved with sympathy again. Stefan had missed that voice. That voice was something reserved only for Stefan when he was feeling little. Perhaps not intentionally, but since Stefan had pushed away his babying in favour of work shades of the old, punchy Colin had flooded right back. Not that Stefan minded since that was everything and more he loved about Colin but... today Stefan wanted to cling to any soothing he could get, cling and never let go.  
‘It’s nothing,’ was what he wanted to say. ‘It’s nothing’ was what he had practised in his head, all bright and breezy and shrugged off, exactly the kind of response Colin would have given because on what fucking planet would Colin fucking Ritman cry like a baby over a computer crash. What came out instead was his throat tightening, his face crumpling like a wet tissue, and a little moaning noise that sounded dangerously close to sliding into a sob. 

“Oh dear. Come on, you. Fag break.” Colin decides. He doesn't give Stefan a choice this time because Stefan clearly wasn’t making the right choices for himself; he simply lifted Stefan out of his chair under the armpits before dragging him, one handed, toward the doors leading to the office foyer. Colin had Thakur wrapped around his fingers; he’d hardly have cared if Colin spent half the day puffing outside the office. Stefan felt as though he was going into autopilot again and let Colin do as he pleased because oh he was much too small to make decisions for himself at the moment, all he needed was for Colin to take the lead. Rubbing his eyes tiredly, it took Stefan a shamefully long time to realise that it wasn’t cold outside— and a shamefully longer time to realise that Colin hadn’t dragged him outside for a cigarette at all but rather that they were standing in the office toilet block. Specifically the baby changing room of the office toilet block.  
“Sorry.” Colin shrugged when Stefan offered him a look of confusion. “Most privacy I can get us.”

“I thought... I thought you said...” he gestured to Colin’s pocket.

“Joint? No. As if, Stefan. I have something you’ll much prefer, anyway.” 

There

— from his pocket —  
He— he— Stefan could hardly believe it— 

he produced Stefan’s dummy. 

He had kept it in his pocket ever since they started back at work. Kept it for moments just like this.  
“Come here, you.” Colin instructed, settling onto the exhausted black couch and beckoning Stefan forward. 

“M- my..” Stefan stuttered in disbelief, whimpering as he collapsed down next to Colin. “Where d- did you get my...”  
Colin shushed him quietly and Stefan silenced himself at once, just like that; silenced himself and just allowed for Colin to quiet him even further by pushing the beloved soother into his (open, awaiting) mouth. Closing his eyes, Stefan crumbled forward into Colin’s lap and clung on.  
Safe.  
Safe— he was safe, he was secure, there was nothing else for him to do, nowhere else for him to be other than in Colin’s arms sucking furiously at the teat of the soother as though it was some form of God given lifeline. Slowly the world around him began to disappear and dark spots began to creep in at the edges of his vision as finally - finally, after holding back for so long - Stefan stumbled into littlespace. Once there he’s silent, grounded, the only sensations being the rhythmic patting of his back as Colin cradles him so closely and the dummy which bobs in his mouth in time with every pat. He forgets about being at work, forgets that Colin is holding him on a dingy old sofa in the dingy office bathrooms— the way he’s feeling, they could be back at home with Rabbit right now.  
He mumbled out from around the teat, dribble collecting at the corners of his mouth. What Stefan wanted so badly to say was ‘thank you and I missed you and I missed this and can we stay here forever’; what came out was weak, mumbled gibberish with relief stitched into every word; there for just a couple of seconds before being drowned out by the furious _thck-thck-thck_ sound of Stefan working the soother around his mouth. 

“I know, Stefan, I know. You missed this,” Colin soothes him urgently even if all Stefan is saying to him is unintelligible baby babble. Colin’s good at deciphering baby babble anyway; after all, Pearl has to carry on his legacy somehow. He peppers kiss after kiss to Stefan’s forehead and then alternates between loving tousles of his hair and rhythmic rocks. “Look at you, Stefan...” he admonished once their gently feverish cuddling had died down. “You’re making all the wrong choices for yourself. Am I going to have to make them for you?”

Of course, he doesn’t mean every decision; Stefan can very much hold his own when it comes to programming for Tuckersoft and Colin wouldn't dare intrude on that. Stefan snivels and suckles, a clear indication that his thoughts are elsewhere; although after some very gentle prompting from Colin he offers up a needy little nod. Yes... yes, he needs it, he needs Colin to make his choices for him. He always has and he always will.

“Well then.” Colin nods. Right choice. He cards his fingers through Stefan’s hair as Stefan wriggles, tries to lie in his lap. “I’m afraid my first choice is going back to work. Thakur’ll only give us-”—by ‘us’ he means Stefan, and Colin isn’t sure he’s mentally sound enough to cope with that—“a bollocking otherwise.” He tugs at the handle of the dummy and inches it out of Stefan’s mouth. It’s like pulling a plug - Stefan’s face crumples and he tries to keep it in, whimpering hopelessly around it with eyes that are wide and pleading. It feels as if Colin’s only just given him his dummy back and— and now he’s trying to take it away again and Stefan feels some sort of heartbroken. Which is ridiculous, really, considering it’s just a piece of fucking plastic that he’s had for a little under two months.  
“Sorry,” Colin croons sympathetically.  
It’s the first word Stefan really listens to now that he’s been pulled out of little space and all he does is whimper in response. 

“Don’t want to,” are the first words out of his mouth once the soother is removed; words that come in that tell tale verge-of-crying voice that make him sound like that lost little boy all over again. He clawed at Colin’s hand, trying to wrench the pacifier free from his closed fist. 

“Stefan...” Colin sounds annoyed and the annoyance slicing through his voice forces Stefan to still, hesitant. Stefan doesn’t like Colin when he’s grumpy and he doesn’t much like Colin’s time outs either.  
When he’s sure he has his attention, Colin strokes Stefan’s cheek. That’s all he needs to capture Stefan whole — so Stefan is a captive audience regardless of whether he likes what Colin is going to say. “We talked about this. You need to work... if Thakur doesn’t get his deadlines in he’s going to play hell.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.” Stefan mutters mutely, looking at Colin’s hands only because he knows Colin’s concealing the soother within them. He’s in the danger zone, his voice on the verge of becoming fully grumpy, and that means that Colin might get grumpy in return — and that definitely means time out later. 

Colin sighs, in a grumpy sort of way. “Take it, then.” He insists and throws the soother at Stefan. He throws it lightly — doesn’t want to hurt him — and it barely hurts when it comes to a gentle impact in Stefan’s side but all the same Stefan isn’t expecting it and he reels in shock. His voice cracks and he begins to breathe heavy; the sort of breathing that Colin has come to know all too well... the sort of breathing that usually means a crying fit is imminent. 

“You hit me!” 

Theeeere it is. 

“Stefan, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hit you.” Colin explains. 

Stefan isn’t listening. “You hit me, you hit me,” is all his mouth seems able to say like he’s a little broken record with a voice getting thicker and thicker with tears. It’s not about his being hit, really, because the pain has already drained off and left his mind but... but... fuck, he just wants Colin to scoop him up and he wants his dummy back. Hell, it’s barely about the dummy — the dummy is right there in his lap and he’s not even reached for it because he wants Colin to do it all for him, damn it—he feels too small to even do that.

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Colin tells him. Colin has never been good with ‘sorry’s; well, he struggles with the mushy gushy sort of ‘sorry’s that come about on shitty romcoms. His arms come to land around Stefan’s back and squeeze all the same and this happens so quickly Stefan can’t process it. 

When they pull away again Colin has stuffed the pacifier back into his mouth and Stefan is sucking softly once more. Colin intertwines their hands and hesitates, opening his mouth. “I’m going to count to five. When I get to five, you need to give me your dummy back and we need to work. Are you listening?”  
Stefan nods dreamily in a way that makes Colin think he isn’t listening very well after all but, hey, it’s a nod all the same. Very well.  
One. Stefan’s eyes are closed.  
Two.  
Three. Stefan tugs the dummy tighter into his mouth as if that’d stop Colin from yanking it out.  
Four—the sucking gets more intense now—  
Five and...  
Hm. Just as Colin suspects, no - no dummy emerges. Obediently, though, his eyes flutter open and he lets Colin take his hand and ease him up from the couch and that’s... a start, so Colin isn’t going to complain. The two exit the bathroom and walk back toward the office together in a comfortable silence that is punctured every now and then by the sound of Stefan’s soother. Weird, that. The soother. Colin almost feels relaxed himself. Perhaps it’s... knowing Stefan is relaxed, or something. It’s been what feels like an age since he’s heard the gentle rhythm of the soother and... the familiarity of it is... comforting. Even if they are at work. And if it feels comforting for him, hell only knows what it feels like for Stefan. 

Colin stills outside of the door to the office. Turns to face Stefan. 

Stefan turns to face him too albeit slower. His shoulders droop; so does the rest of him. Hesitantly, he spits out the soother. Thrusts it toward Colin.

Colin stares at it. “What?”

“The.. soother. You said I s-shouldn’t have it at work.” Stefan reminded, fidgeting awkwardly. His voice is different now; different to what it is when he’s plummeted to the deepest depths of littlespace - it’s almost normal with just the usual amount of awkwardness thrown in... but to Colin it sounds just the tiniest bit strained, as though Stefan is trying his hardest to be grown up even though he’s not quite there yet. It makes Stefan’s choice all the more heart wrenching. Colin hesitates and reaches for the soother although he doesn’t particularly want to — feelings that are heightened by Stefan’s attempt to push the soother into Colin’s open palm. “Stefan...”  
A sigh. Colin shakes his head. “Stefan... it’s yours. Keep it. If it calms you down enough to work then...”  
He shrugs. Like it’s easy as that. 

Stefan swallows. Processing. In this moment he’s not sure if Colin has this ‘baby’ thing worked out properly because it’s not as fucking easy as just popping in a pacifier and flicking Thakur the finger. This could... this could cost him his job. Colin’s job. But, God, he needs his soother now more than anything. “Colin, I can’t.” He keens around the lump rising in his throat. “You... you know I can’t.”

“So what?” Colin shrugs. Again. “Thakur would rather have you working with a dummy than not working and smashing up his electronics. Besides. I told you. It’s basically a fashion statement nowadays. Discrimination, technically, if he complains. Just whip it out if someone important comes in. He lets me smoke on the job, he can let you have the dummy.”

Stefan hated how Colin explains things so confidently— as if they’re not going to get caught out, as if everything is rainbows-and-fucking-butterflies. Nevertheless, he grips the soother in his hand and, trembling, headed back toward his designated workspace. 

~

Sliding back into his projects came relatively easy despite his fragile state of mind and Stefan found himself smoothing out the bugs and glitches in his newest project with relative ease for at least a hour and a half. Just after that, however, came the first bump in the road. Frustration itched through his veins as the particular sequence he’d been working on crashes over and over again with seemingly no reason as to why. Something rises from his belly, his pulse roars, the urge to fucking scream and kick everything off of his desk is... strong... but...  
but Stefan takes a deep breath.  
Locks gaze on the pacifier resting on his workstation  
and... stuffs it into his mouth. The second it’s there Stefan feels his rage bubbling away and sighs with bliss, sinking low in his chair but ever so careful of slipping into littlespace.

Thakur takes care of this for him.

“Butler, this isn’t a fucking crèche.”

His voice sails right through the serenity of Stefan’s mind, pulling him up from free falling into littlespace in less than an instant. Stefan jolts forward in his chair with a barked out “Yes!” and simultaneously yanks the soother out.

“Why do you have that in your mouth, anyway?”

“Fashion statement.” Colin calls over before Stefan even has a chance to open his mouth. Thakur gives him a confused nod, sidesteps away. Kids these days.

“Come on, you,” Colin whispers to Stefan, squeezing his shoulder. “Lunchtime.”

Lunchtime means Stefan is one step closer to getting home. Getting home means he’s one step closer to being babied again. Slipping the soother into his pocket, Stefan follows Colin toward the canteen and rubs a temple. “I can’t wait to get home.”

“Long day?” Colin is sympathetic. Stefan sounded fucking exhausted.  
No doubt he is, though; Colin doesn’t doubt the stress going in and out of littlespace so soon puts on a person. He puts an arm around Stefan and squeezes his shoulder, smiling to himself when Stefan nestles in just the slightest. 

“Can’t wait to go home and cuddle up. Dummy and Rabbit.” Stefan whispers shyly. His voice still sounds as grown up as he can make it so Colin isn’t worried that he’s slipped into littlespace or anything. Stefan just... struggles to come to terms with talking about... this... so openly.  
“Yeah? No Thomas, then?”

Colin has tried his hardest to turn Stefan into a Thomas the Tank Engine fan, bless him. Stefan grimaces. “No. I don’t like it.”  
It’s not even that it’s a kid’s programme that bothers him; it’s just not interesting. Show him something he did watch as a kid, preferably the shows that were on just after school when Mummy gave him smiley faces for tea, and he may reconsider.

“Pearl does.” Colin shrugs.

“I bet there’s some sort of deeper meaning in it, right?” Stefan giggles. “Some communist allegory that only she understands because they’ve, I dunno, spiked her baby food?”

“Now you’re getting it!” Colin enthuses. The two fall to giggling amongst themselves on the way to lunch and fall down various rabbit holes of conspiracy theories, government control and allegory.

Stefan gets smiley faces. From the canteen. Quite why they’re selling them in a work canteen when they’re quite blatantly primary school food he doesn’t know, but they make him smile all the same; smile and think of Mum and Rabbit and all the other things he had as a kid.

Those things he’s lucky to still have.

Oh, he can’t wait to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> This isn't directly linked to my previous Bandersnatch ageplay, but they sort of float around in the same verse so... eh!  
> I think I have one or two ideas more I can squeeze out of my tiny brain.
> 
> I'm dying to get some omorashi up in this tag, too, so... who knows. Maybe!
> 
> If you enjoyed this fic, please, *pleeeeaseee* go ahead and leave a comment or a kudos. I appreciate whatever you give me, although comments make my heart flutter a lil bit. They also keep me enthused to write more and more so... it's a win win, right?
> 
> xx


End file.
